Senate not considering Supreme Court nominee until elections

By Esra Kaymak Avci and Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON

The Senate will not confirm any Supreme Court nominee before presidential elections in November, the Republican majority leader of the Senate said Tuesday.

While urging President Barack Obama to reconsider even submitting a name, Sen. Mitch McConnell said in a written statement that the commander-in-chief had the right to nominate someone "just as the Senate has its constitutional right to provide or withhold consent".

"In this case the Senate will withhold it," McConnell said. Senate Republicans have insisted that they would not consider any nominee until a new president is elected.

The discussion comes 10 days after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia -- renowned for his conservative tendencies. Obama had vowed to nominate an "indisputably" qualified candidate who is also "fair-minded" while urging the Senate to take up in a timely fashion any nominee he puts forth.

The White House lashed out at the Senate leader's intransigence, saying that it is yet another example of lawmakers failing to fulfill their most "basic constitutional responsibilities".

"This would be a historic and unprecedented acceleration of politicizing a branch of government that's supposed to be insulated from politics," spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

"As the president has acknowledged, there are Democrats and Republicans who are responsible for contributing to that, there is no denying that what leader McConnell and other Republicans are proposing to do right now would turbo-charge that process."

Before Scalia’s death, the nine-member Court was split 5-4 among justices -- leaning conservative.

The possibility that a liberal judge nominated by Obama becomes the Court’s next member is the main reason for Republican opposition.

Supreme Court justices have no term limits.